Wideband systems are used for improved range resolution without compromising on Doppler resolution. However wideband arrays introduce distortion due to the wide bandwidth introduced, and for problems involving one-dimensional angular search methods have been developed to address this difficulty. [Y. Yang, C. Sun, and C. Wan, “Theoretical and Experimental Studies on Broadband Constant Beamwidth Beamforming for Circular Array”, Proceedings of OCEANS 2003, Vol. 3. pp. 1647-1653, September 2003]. Circular arrays allow open access around the entire 360 degrees and in addition scanning in the elevation direction become possible. Linear arrays are also often used in radar and communication problems.
However, processing the data becomes often difficult because of the wideband nature of the problem. Traditionally the wideband data is partitioned into several narrowband data segments, and then they are processed separately or together by stacking up the various frequency components in a vector format. In this later approach, spatial domain, and with temporal domain data when stacked up together with frequency domain results in three-dimensional (3-D) data that adds severe computational burden for processing. [A. O. Steinhardt and N. B. Pulsone “Subband STAP processing, the Fifth Generation,” Proceedings of the Sensor Array and Multichannel Signal Processing Workshop, Cambridge, Mass., March 2000]. In this context, a new signal processing strategy that separates the frequency and the angular variables into two components is investigated in the joint azimuth-elevation domain, so that efficient algorithms can be designed to process the entire wideband data simultaneously.